Archives

Categories

An oldie, but a goodie, February 20, 1971, WOWO gets a EAN via AP teletype and follows procedure:

Back in the days of EBS, there were weekly closed circuit tests via AP and UPI teletype. In the event of a real Emergency Action Notification (EAN) there was a red envelope that contained a set of code words for each month. The test code words were on the outside of the envelope. If a EAN was received, the envelope would be torn open and the actual code words would be matched against the code words in the message. If it were authenticated, then the station would do just what WOWO did right then, send the two tone EBS alert for 25 seconds and break into programming.

It is amazing that this did not happen more often, especially on a Saturday morning with some a sleepy Airman in Colorado pulling the wrong message tape off the rack at the message center responsible for the whole system.

It has happened more recently when an EAS message was sent to evacuate the entire state of Connecticut. A EAN was sent in Chicago warning of a national attack when state officials were testing their new system. I am sure that others have been sent as well.

I suppose the emergency notification has always left something to be desired.

Axiom

A pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass as twice the size it needs to be.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~1st amendment to the United States Constitution

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
~Benjamin Franklin

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
~Rudyard Kipling

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
~Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 19

...radio was discovered, and not invented, and that these frequencies and principles were always in existence long before man was aware of them. Therefore, no one owns them. They are there as free as sunlight, which is a higher frequency form of the same energy.
~Alan Weiner